United States v. J. S. Stearns Lumber Co., 245 U.S. 436 (1918)

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United States v. J. S. Stearns Lumber Company

No. 94

Argued December 18, 1917
Decided January 7, 1918
245 U.S. 436

APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF WISCONSIN

Syllabus

By the treaty of 1842, proclaimed in 1843, 7 Stat. 591, the Lake Superior Chippewas ceded lands in Wisconsin, reserving privileges of occupancy until removed by the President. Wisconsin was admitted in 1848. The treaty of 1854, proclaimed in 1855, 10 Stat. 1109, set apart from the ceded lands a reservation for the Indians, their occupancy not having been disturbed in the meantime, and provided for surveying this reserved land and for allotting it in severalty at the discretion of the President. Allotment patents were issued accordingly in 1907, withholding all right of alienation without the President’s consent, and under them the allottees resided on and claimed their several tracts. The lands in controversy, comprised by the original occupancy, the reservation, and allotments, were surveyed as sections numbered 16, but not until 1864 and 1873. Held that, as the treaty and reservation operated to withdraw the sections before survey and the allotments merely provided a home for the Indians as promised by the treaty, in furtherance of the purpose of the reservation, the sections were disposed of within the meaning of the school section grant in the Wisconsin enabling act, and title did not pass to the state either before or after the allotments. Wisconsin v. Lane, ante,427.

Reversed.

The case is stated in the opinion.